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“DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS.
District Clerk’s Office—to wit :
BE it remembered, that on the third day of October, 1818, and in the forty-third year of the independence of the United States of America, JONATHAN WARE, Esq. of the said district has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit: ‘ Apology for New Principles in education, by Jonathan Ware. We are disposed to ascribe so much power to these obstructions to intellectual originality, that we cannot help fancying, that if Franklin, had been bred in a college, he would have contented himself with expounding the metres of Pindar, or mixing argument with his port in the common room ; and that if Boston had ” abounded with men of letters, he would never have ventured to come forth from his printing-house, or have been driven back to it, at any rate, by the sneers of the critics, after the first publication of his essays in the Busy Body.—Edinburgh Review, July 1806.’ In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, ‘ An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned’ ; and also An Act, entitled,’ An Act supplementary to An Act, entitled, An Act for the encouragement of learning by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned ; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints.’
Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. A true Copy of Record,
Attest—J. W. Davis, Clerk.”
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“APPENDIX.
EVIDENCE of some of those, who have witnessed at examinations the proficiency of learners instructed in the method, prescribed in the preceding Apology. Opinion of Mr. John Leverett and Col. Josiah Dunham.
Mr. Jonathan Ware, having devoted, gratuitously, five days, to a class of young ladies and misses, in this village, of various ages, in teaching them to read and construe the French language ; and we having witnessed, with much pleasure, an exhibition of their improvement, it is but an act of justice to that gentleman to state, unsolicited by him, that it exceeded any thing of the kind we have before witnessed ; and affords very conclusive evidence of the superiority of his mode of communicating instruction.
JOHN LEVERETT,
J. DUNHAM.
Windsor, Vermont, May 10, 1817.
Opinion of the Hon. John Trumbull, L. L. D. At the request of Mr. Jonathan Ware, I have attended an examination of a class of about an hundred pupils, who had been only one week under his tuition. They consisted of children from seven to fourteen years of age, belonging to a common English school in this city. Their proficiency in so short a period was surprising and evinced to my satisfaction the peculiar excellence of his mode of instruction in the rudiments of language and grammar. Instead of burdening the memory with a mass of rules, which children learn to repeat by rote, before they have discernment to comprehend, or skill to apply them, he teaches the first principles of language in a manner perfectly simple, intelligible and suited to their understanding. His method of instructing them, as to the natural emphasis of words, the different stress of voice with which they should be pronounced, and the use of accents and pauses, must tend in a great degree to banish those unnatural tones and improper cadences in reading, which we usually acquire at school and are seldom able wholly to correct afterwards. In respect to his general system of education, from what knowledge I could obtain in conversing with him on the subject, and from the opinions of so many gentlemen of science, who have given it their approbation, I am persuaded, that it is calculated to facilitate the acquisition of language, is a valuable improvement on the usual mode of instruction, and deserves public patronage.
JOHN TRUMBULL. Hartford, May 31, 1817. Having been present at the within mentioned examination which was had before a Committee of the Legislature, I concur in the foregoing recommendation.”
Reference Data:
Apology for New Principles in Education, by Jonathan Ware, 1818
